Remote Access

[admin_2]

Realizing AV's current remote access support is for PCAnywhere only, are there plans to support Terminal Server in the near future as well? Or will this remain until next year?<br><br>Cisco's policy is to use the 'built in' functionality of Windows 2k with Terminal Server for remote Administration, thereby eliviating the overhead of any 3rd party apps on production servers.<br><br>Cheers!<br>John.<br><br>

[#2]

There are no plans in the near future to use anything other than pcANYWHERE that I know of.

We tested a lot of remote access products before we settled on using pcANYWHERE and that included terminal server and schemes using NetMeeting and the like. The best performer was carbon copy, however it had some stability issues and we fell back on PCA. for the record, PCA had considerably less impact on memory and CPU than the terminal server since we had to get RAS setup for direct modem access (which is a requirement since not everyone has or is willing to let us get at direct IP connections).

I'm sure it'll be revisited, but in my opinion PCA is the best remote control option around, bar none. The impact of adding this to the system is considerably smaller than going with a fatter, slower, less functional "built in" capability in my opinion.

I know this is a hot button issue with folks... feel free to weigh in.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect
Active Voice
jlindborg@activevoice.com
http://members.home.net/jlindborg

[#3]

Jeff - do you know if they considered VNC as an alternate? It's freely available through http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ and runs on any version of Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac, etc... On NT it's run as a service and we use is on all our in-house servers as well as a lot of our customers. You do need a public IP but with that there are workarounds. Thanks - Tim

[#4]

yes... this is a real hot button issue with some folks and always has been, even back in the Repartee days before PCA was even on the radar.

I'm sure this issue will get looked at again real soon... PCA is not the only game in town, we realize that, and everyone has an opinion as to the best method of remote access support (and many feel we should support multiple methods, which can be a tad rough in a large support organization).

PCA was the best choice for our target audience at the time which includes a significant number of "stand alone" voice mail systems not hooked up to the internet at all. We wanted one configuration that could ship preinstalled and ready to rock on all systems going out the door, was easy to install in the field, worked with IP or a modem, was reliable, had good file transfer support, good security etc... PCA fit the bill at the time and I think still does a very good job.

I'm sure this will be revisited and a new policy decided on in the next several months. I'm just letting you know what our current policy is and why we settled on PCA.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect
Active Voice
jlindborg@activevoice.com
http://members.home.net/jlindborg

[#5]

Cisco's 'officially' supported remote access method for Call Manager 3.x on the MCS-78xx boxes is MSTerminal Services in Remote Administration mode. With this, we could probably likely assume it'll be the same with Unity once they start shipping on the MCS boxes as well.

We currently use that method here, and love it. (Especially via modems from hotel rooms when on the road, etc.)

Cheers!
John.

[#6]

This is getting to be a hot issue with all support folks that need access to servers (>300) at our location. We are literally cutting off access via modems and forcing vendors to use VPN. Security is the obvious reason. VPN works great after getting over the initial "this is the only way we support servers" reply and also working through any firewall issues. I would look at this very hard as a way to support systems instead of the PCA route.

Thanks,
Brad